The Stableboy
by Blue Eyes At Night
Summary: Probably a one-shot. Insight to Lucian's feelings about Sonja. Most likely will not be added to, Review please!


They moved him to the stables and it was no small secret why. Viktor hardly allowed respected Death Dealer's like Damien to be so bold to Sonja, much less a servant, a veritable slave and a lycan at that. Lucian, frankly, was rather surprised that he'd escaped the whip for his behavior. It wouldn't be the first time he felt those silver vertebrae, though for this offense it would be.

He had been removed from guard duty because his duty was right by her rooms. Viktor had been suspicious, he had no proof to go on but he suspected that the lycan was snooping around Sonja's room, and he would've been correct. When she was asleep he would sometimes sit outside her locked balcony and just listen to her breathing, when the night fell and she still slept he had once been so brave as to take a few steps into her room and gaze at her while she slept.

Now that she'd encouraged him he might very well have been bolder……but now he was a stable hand, the lycan in charge of caring for the horses. Not that he loathed the task but it was dreadfully far away from her, the other end of the castle, and he had a very remote possibility of stealing another glance at her.

But it had been worth it. It had been worth looking into those deep emerald orbs, worth seeing the smile on her face, worth the brief flirtation.

Worth the look of deepest disapproval on Viktor's face, the threat behind the Elder's eyes.

"Shh," he cooed to an agitated mare, "shh, calm. I won't hurt you."

His deep voice soothed the beast, after a few minutes the mare relaxed in his touch completely. Horses, as a rule, responded better to lycans then vampires, it was because the lycans smelled like dogs which were commonly put in as stable-mates with the horses. Lucian supposed that it was like having a childhood blanket come back and cover you, like feeling safe. The vampires did not have an overly appealing aura for the horses' to sense, it was cold. The type of cold that sunlight cannot warm, that the cold-blooded carry, that the half-dead wear. Vampires were like a hale storm, frigid glares and hisses thrown into a once bright world.

Spare for one. Sonja was as cold as her kin, sadly, but she was more a winter queen then an icy undertaker. She wore the hale as jewelry, the snow as a gown and the ice as a crown and looked evermore radiant.

Sometimes he saw her shiver in the night, just before she rose, and had longed so to warm her.

His lycan brothers teased him mercilessly about her, his forbidden passion, but few commented on how hotly he followed her. Twas a courting ritual for lycans, the male pursues his female, trailing her, inhaling her scent, playfully nipping at her heels until she either bites him back or lets him claim her. Lucian barely realized how treacherous his fascination, his near obsession, with the princess was.

But he couldn't help it.

In lycans instinct was stronger then anything and that instinct was propelled by a wolf. A fully grown wolf that had caught the scent of the grandest hunt of his life. Inside his head the wolf couldn't understand that barriers kept Lucian from seeing the princess, that there were laws and punishments awaiting those who broke the law. The wolf could only see her, want her, and only felt the dire need in the base of his soul to pursue her.

But the man had to leash the beast, to keep it at bay as best as he could.

He scarcely knew the princess more then she was beautiful and kind, the most kind to his people, to her own people, to anything and everything that she crossed. He knew that her face graced his most wonderful dreams, that he would do anything for her. Would slit his own wrist at her whim but such was lycan loyalty. Whether or not twas the best action, some part of his psyche had decided at some point that she was worth protecting, that she had done naught wrong in her life, that she was incapable of evil and he had named himself her ward. If anything happened to her he'd seek retribution, if he could spare her pain by suffering he'd do so, such was the position the wolf in his head and heart had put him in.

He remembered how she used to sneak food to lycan pups when she was younger. It may seem crude to some, to feed others that were half starved the left-overs from your meal but her father would've lashed her hands ten times for every morsel. Would have if he caught her which he never did. There were female lycans who sometimes attended her as domestics and she was renowned for offering them drink, blood from her own cup, if they looked parched. She had offered some things that they admired in her quarters, a broach or a mirror. She had given one maid a comb of pure gold with topaz inlays that looked like cat eyes. When the slave had asked why Sonja would give this away she simply replied that they were gifts from would-be suitors and she'd no interest in the man or the gift, that the men had not let her give back their lavish presents and that if they should please the girl to have them, by all means she should. The lycan girls would always try to give back the jewels and trophies but Sonja would pout and always answered that plea the same way, "Would you see me saddened?"

To this the lycans would reply "No" either by personal desire to not see her morose or by virtue of their position as her slaves and to their reply she responded, "Then please keep it."

Her voice would be so soft and shy that it broke the girls' hearts to refuse her and she told them if it was found in their possession to tell the Death Dealers that they were asked to clean it and had been shooed out of the room and were to do their duty and report straight back.

Every time a lycan maid came back with a new treasure Lucian's affection for the princess grew. No vampire in their right mind would do such a nicety for the lycan 'dogs', few would feed them properly or let them pick up their heads to their masters without a whip. But Sonja…. Sonja would speak to them sometimes as if they were hired aids, or maybe harmless dolls, or mayhap tame dogs but she was taught to think of them as rabid pests. She regarded them kindly and had on several occasions seen the lycan guards coming in from duty and had bowed her head to them, and thanked them for doing their duty well.

He had been lucky enough to be in the group she thanked on more then one occasion and he remembered once one young, first time guard had sputtered in half awe at her remark, "For what do you thank us, milady?"

"The sunlight has been kept at bay once more; the vampires have not perished in the flame. You lycans hold our fate in your hands and have given us reason to trust it once more. Others may not thank you for giving us the courtesy to live but I won't be so rude." All this she had said half-blushing and quietly, for she was of a soft spoken nature and shy to boot but the bravery it must have taken her to speak those words where others could've heard her……it made her so much more beautiful then she had been before, and to his eyes that was a feat indeed.

Even as he tended the horses he should've felt it, that flutter in the marrow of his bones as he thought about her the delightful feel of her name on his lips when he spoke it, he was in love before their affair ever began.

He continued to brush the horses, humming to himself and remembering her smile, her eyes. He would live on visions of her forever.

Behind him a shadow flickered and he turned. Though it was daylight, there was Sonja, walking in the shadows of the corridor. She froze and caught his gaze. Once more his pulse rose, his senses were completely attuned to her. He lived for this but her face was wrought with sorrow. She looked about the sables as though realizing something horrid.

"_I'm so sorry."_ He heard her whisper before fleeing. He wondered if there were guards about, _oh what they would do to him if he ran after her._ They'd kill him. She had looked about the stables so sadly, did she realize that he was demoted here? Did she know it was because of her? Surely she couldn't blame herself!

_Don't you know that I gladly suffer this for the memory of you acknowledging me not once but twice. You looked into my eyes and saw that I existed. I've looked at you and it was welcome. They may take my eyes out if they wish, for I shall never look at anything so fair again. _

_A/N- More then likely a one shot, may at some point in time add to it but I doubt it will become a fic. So assume it's a one shot and kindly review!!_


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